Today started out at FOB Geronimo
I was not happy when we started out. I thought that our route was unnecessarily
risky. I told the LtCol as much over
breakfast.
“Sir, I’ll be happy to see Nawa in my rear view mirror.”
It was a delicious breakfast, as it always is at Geronimo, egg
white omelet, French toast, fresh fruit, biscuit, gravy, everything.
I got an intel update from the S2 shop, we were skirting Red-Air
most of the day. Meaning there would be
very little ISR or air support for our trip.
We set off south and I decided to break a lot of desert to be well
clear of the ‘graves’ two ‘women’ who did not have the typically hunched walk
of women were screwing around with them and walking away just as we were
driving up. They also let they burqas
flap too freely. We steered clear and
pressed on.
We went through “Indian Country” as I call it, southern Nawa where
the ANA have taken over security and we (Marines) have very little visibility
on what is happening. I was not thrilled
about this part of the trip. We made it
through with no real incident. Thank God
and my heart felt pretty good.
We stopped at Geronimo. I
met up with the Legacy mentor there, Steve, and his linguist, Sherif. We gave them some of the IR strobes that we
had given out to everyone else. He
really believes in the mission, and is a team player. He doesn’t give a shit who gets credit, he
wants to put his guys to work and teach them how to kill Taliban. It is amazing given that he’s been here a
year and a half. I met up with Strom
there too. He is doing well, but he is
stuck at the HQ. His Princton Physics
degree was too much to waste at the companies.
By his own admission
“Once they figured out that I had reasonable written and verbal
communications skills, they decided to never let me off of the FOB.”
We moved from Dehli to PB Shamshad.
This is now their training academy for the ANA in 2nd
Kandak. It has expanded a lot since we
arrived. When we got here a year ago
they’ve pushed out the wire and added a lot of amenities, power, a big COC. When we were there last it was four MATV’s
and a hut, the SSgt there didn’t want any generators because he didn’t want to
be tied down.
While at Shamshod the new team was busy questioning Petranzio, the
team lead from their kandak. LtCol Valquist
sat down in the back. I got a chair and
sat next to him.
“Sir, it’s not our fight anymore.”
We overheard them talking busily with Petranzio about ATG, how the
training package was still oriented toward the ETT alone and unafraid, how they
didn’t learn any of the ANA policies or procedures, they still just did
medevacs. I snapped a picture.
“Overwatch.” He said, not giving away too much
There was a pause.
“I was thinking about it the other day, no matter the hell I’ve
been through with these guys, I can’t just not care. Does it get easier when you have a bunch of
deployments?”
“Most guys who are just ready to turn over and get out of here are
those guys who have a desk to sit behind, who walk to chow, then to their
computer, then to chow, then to their computer, then to the gym, then to
sleep. Look at Hesco, he’s turned into a
basketcase since he took over the current Ops Job.”
Maybe, but it didn’t answer my question.
We loaded up and went to PB Barcha.
There was no real point, the LtCol just loves the damn place. It is an old fort the Ghaznavids probably
built that has been used intermittently since. Being the highest piece of
ground around, the Marines naturally took it.
I sat down with Dan Petranzio.
The poor bastard was really feeling bad.
“I feel like I’m about to pass out.”
“What’s up.”
“I’m fasting.”
“Ramadan?”
“Yah, I just get useless in the afternoon. At first it was seven then eight, days then I
figured what the hell.”
“Brother, you are nuts, 50 years ago it wouldn’t have been so bad,
Ramadan would have been in the winter, you poor bastard.”
I found out later that he was doing it so that he could have the
credibility to say to his Afghans
“I’m fasting too, and I’m working, so figure it out.”
Maybe I should have done it.
The Afghans were asking me if I was at the beginning.
We rolled from there, dropped Dan off, he got out and shook my hand
as he left. Good dude.
We rolled across the long bridge for the last time, our minroller
had the winch cable snap and it was slightly off to the right. The end of the
bridge had collapsed because a jingle truck fell off a couple of months
ago. As we came off the mini bridge and
down onto the real bridge with our mineroller the thing climbed the curb and
started bending the right railing.
The Gunny yelled
“LEFT MONDT”
Mondt didn’t respond immediately.
By this time the cab settled down and I could see too.
I yelled, “JESUS, LEFT MONDT.” It was about 60 feet down to the
Helmand river, the bridge is so narrow that pedestrians and motorcycles all
need too clear out before we cross, and then we only do it one at a time. Our
mineroller kept bending the guardrail like it was nothing. I could barely feel it because my truck
weighs 24,000 lbs. Fuck.
Mondt pulled it out, but what was normally 6 inches of clearance
became two inches.
Gunny made fun of him from the turret when we stopped.
“Here lies GySgt Louis Casanova, savior of Afghanistan drowned in the
Helmand river.”
We moved back to base, the dust was bad, I tried to mitigate the
dust, but picking a cross track that would keep everyone out of it, but then
when we got back everyone bitched about the bumps. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
The LtCol shook all our hands, gave us what he called a “man hug”
and told us we were not having a meeting.
He basically told us we were done.
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| Jokes for days... |
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| 'It's not our fight' the new mentors were on deck. |
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| PB Barcha |
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